


The Servant Has No Such Ambitions

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Banners from the Turrets/The Servant Has No Such Ambition [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, Megatron's type is apparently 'nerdy and willing to kill me', Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Valve Oral (Transformers), finale? what finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:49:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: Hey do you remember when Megatron not only remembered who Rung was several million years after a one-off meeting but also implied that Rung was an influence in his rise to power?Let's talk about how that might shake out.





	The Servant Has No Such Ambitions

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact this fic was sparked by a CS Lewis quote. I've been working on this for a while now off and on--it kind of sits in the middle of the comics as if canon never broke off into a mutiny.

The first time they spoke of _Toward Peace_ , Rung thought he understood what the conversation had been about. Megatron’s comment about their first encounter seemed an obvious misdirect, yet another clear signal that he’d rather the conversation be over. Rung hadn’t even remembered such a meeting; he half believed it to be a careless fiction.

In what world would _he_ be counted among the more influential figures of _Megatron’s_ life? Their first meeting, if they had even had such a one as he described, had made no impression on Rung. And Megatron hardly seemed one to value the work of healing sparks and minds. He’d been reserved and elusive, dismissive of Rung’s observations throughout his entire mandated session. Like anything else, therapy was a two way street—and Rung could do nothing for or with a person who wouldn’t even let him off the sidewalk.

(And anyway, Rung wouldn’t have talked at such length about the arm canon if Megatron hadn’t devoted an entire section of his biography to the disarmament and weaponization of his own body—really, it was right _there_ , in his own writing.)

It was a bit of a slap in the face to be honest. It didn’t matter; he was an old professional at tuning those out and plowing forward. One did not simply lose their temper with a difficult patient.

But it’s been several misadventures since that session, and the functioning of the ship goes on.

Even aboard the Lost Light, where the population caps at 200, Rung has plenty to do without being put on the duty roster. He has his regulars, like Whirl, and any number of drop ins, and then anyone who starts enough ruckus that Rodimus has them shipped over to get straightened out. With this many strong personalities in close quarters for this long, with nothing but a bar for recreation, there’s always _someone_ ready to pop. And then there’s the correspondences he keeps with his more long term patients, and his personal recreation, and he likes to check in on Fortress Maximus at least every other shift cycle, even if it’s just a brief ping.

Which is why Rung is more than a _little_ irritated that he’s been left on cleaning duty by himself today.

He’s standing in the hallway outside the auxiliary boiler room, staring at the rusted violet stain splattered up the wall and onto the ceiling, when he hears the approach of someone quite a lot bigger than him. The heaviness of the steps are a dead giveaway. Brightening, Rung turns to them and starts to say, “Sorry to bother you, but could you spare—”

He pauses. The eyes giving him a curious once-over are very, very red.

“Yes?” Megatron prompts. He has a datapad in his servo, one digit suspended above it as if he was in the midst of scrolling. Rung is frankly too busy a bot to expend the energy on being intimidated by every taller person who walks into his line of sight (which is very many, there are so many war builds out there now), but—Megatron didn’t get to be the fist and spark of a multi-million year war without being a _little_ bit intimidating. It’s not just his size, and it’s not just his reputation, although both of those are formidable. It’s the way he carries himself, the self assured slow rumble, a war machine with no war left to fight.

Well, Megatron or no Megatron, Rung has things to do.

He rallies. “Could you spare me a servo?” he says, and points up at the ceiling. “I’m afraid I’m flying solo, as they say, and that’s a bit out of my reach.”

Megatron follows his finger. “What in the name of Primus is _that,_ ” he says, his expression twisting. The stain almost seems to solidify in defiance.

“The new craze on the Lost Light, I believe,” Rung says. “Someone has introduced our crew to the formidable allure of 'shoot shoot bang'. I received a notice that Whirl was being reprimanded for reckless use of a nonlethal firearm a cycle or two ago. No doubt this corridor is one of his many casualties.”

Megatron looks from Rung to the stain and back. He tucks away the datapad. “Are you asking me to pick you up, doctor?”

Rung sputters. “I,” he says, “no—no that’s not—I would, I would prefer if you didn’t.”

The look that comes across Megatron’s faceplate is something Rung can only call _chagrined._ “I was attempting to introduce a bit of levity,” he says. “I’m aware that I come off as somewhat… unapproachable.”

“Ah,” Rung says. “And… do you find that unsatisfactory?”

Megatron’s optics flicker and narrow. “Pass me the rag,” he says, and holds out his servo. “I’ll get the spot for you.”

Rung passes him the rag, setting it lightly in his enormous blunt palm. It barely seems more than a scrap in his grip.

He reaches up and, with no effort at all, lays a servo against the top of the wall. At his hip, Rung is at loose ends, a bit, with nothing to do himself. He leans back against the wall and watches as Megatron carefully scrubs away the enigmatic stain, each motion meticulous and measured.

“Why are you out here working alone?” Megatron asks him. “I thought it was standard to assign two crewmates to a duty. And you are… somewhat small to cover so much space by yourself, as we are discovering.”

“I was supposed to be on shift with Trailbreaker,” Rung replies.

“Is he well?”

“Oh, almost certainly,” Rung says, an edge of exasperation bleeding into his tone. “I imagine he’s at Swerve’s right now, intoxicated to the point of producing static. He’ll apologize tomorrow I’m sure.”

“Hmm,” Megatron says. He seems thoughtful, as he works his way into the corner of the doorway, and Rung assumes that he is thinking about the prevalence of intoxication among the crew, or the laxity of the duty roster, or something of that nature, right up until he opens his mouth again.

“You hesitated,” Megatron says. “When you saw it was me you were calling over.”

Rung stiffens. “Did I?”

“I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything,” Megatron says, with casual certainty, as if he _knows_ Rung to be anything at all.

“Not to be afraid would be foolish, in a universe like ours, with the lives we’ve lived,” Rung replies, carefully. “I’m afraid of many things.”

“…But not of me,” Megatron concludes, with a strange note of satisfaction.

Rung frowns. “Truth be told,” he says, “I thought you might find the request beneath you. Even if you are technically a prisoner, you’re still captain here.”

Megatron makes a noncommittal noise. He has the rag wrapped around the tips of two fingers, a strangely delicate sight. “On a Decepticon ship,” he says, “for the captain to so much as _look_ at a mop would have spelled multiple attempted coups. It would have been taken as a sign of weakness. A lack of self-respect.”

“Not for you, I’m sure,” Rung says. “Your cult of personality would have been difficult to dismantle.”

A wry smile twists Megatron’s face. “You know as well as anyone else that the moment I so much as picked up a squeegee to clean a window, Starscream would have thrown me out the airlock and had the whole place reupholstered. The way you’re watching me, I’m half convinced you’re about to do the same.”

Rung tilts his head. “If you don’t trust my company, why did you agree to help?”

The rag pauses against the violet stain.

Rung knows better than to disregard his own instincts, but he honestly doesn’t know _what_ to make of the flicker which passes over Megatron’s features. He can feel some kind of tension twist the frequency of Megatron’s EM field, perhaps frustration.

“Do you have any mode that isn’t psychiatry, doctor?”

 _Not really_ , Rung thinks with some grim amusement. But he’s found that it can be upsetting for others when he makes those sorts of jokes. He prefers not to risk any talk about _modes_ in casual conversation.

In the end, he only spreads his servos and says, “If I made you uncomfortable, I _am_ sorry.”

The apology does nothing to relax the tenor of Megatron’s field, or the set of his shoulders. It’s a small thing—if Megatron was ever sincerely expressive, he probably taught himself out of that habit about the same time he stopped daring to clean things—but Rung notices. Of course Rung notices. Megatron is a steel wall, as elusive and dismissive as ever. He’s surprised by the amount of disappointment he feels at that realization.

“It’s for the best that they didn’t keep me on as your psychiatrist,” Rung says, after a moment of struggling with that.

“Is it?” Megatron asks, casting him a sidelong look.

“It wouldn’t have done you any good,” Rung says, “seeing as you don’t respect me.” He fishes a cleaning cloth from a compartment before pulling off his glasses. “That’s not the kind of relationship that clinical trust can grow from.”

At that, Megatron pauses and turns to look at him fully. “What gave you the idea that I don’t respect you?”

“Please,” Rung says. He holds the frames up to the light with a mirthless smile, inspecting the glass. “ _Captain._ Don’t insult my intelligence. You made it perfectly clear what you think of my work.”

“You gravely misunderstand,” Megatron says.

With his servos working busily in front of him as he scrubs the lenses, Rung lifts his bare optics. “What use does an old general have for a noncombatant like me? With all my silly theories and pointless questions. I have no doubt that my profession seems superfluous to you.”

“I don’t appreciate having it turned on _me,_ ” Megatron says. “And I’m not sure what you expected to gain by doing so. Everyone knows what I am.”

“On the contrary,” Rung replies, “despite what they presume, I think very few people know what you are. Least of all yourself.”

For a moment, Megatron only looks at him. And then he returns to the work, prosaic and ignoble as it is. Rung finishes cleaning his glasses and sets them back on his faceplate.

“Have you ever read _Omega Prime?”_ Megatron asks him, apropos of nothing. It’s a strange gambit for a conversation, but Rung’s bitterness softens nonetheless.

“The play?” he asks. A memory comes back to him, static-snowed with age. There were yellow flags on the stadium that day, and an open sky the color of saltglass over the hushed crowd. “I saw it once, on its first run. It’s been quite a while.”

“How did you take it?”

“That’s oddly phrased,” Rung remarks. But he gives it a moment of reflection anyway. “I always thought it was very sad. There were so many times that the whole tragedy could have been avoided. All those courtiers and generals, and no one would lift a servo to save poor Brighteye.”

Megatron isn’t looking at him, but Rung can _feel_ the way he’s listening, and frankly it’s enough to take Rung aback. He can’t remember the last time someone listened to him this intently. Although, now that he thinks about it…

“Wasn’t there…” Rung frowns. “Wasn’t there something in your book about…”

Megatron gives the wall one last swipe and unwinds the rag from his servos, turning back to Rung.

“You really don’t remember, do you?” he says.

The curious resignation—disappointment?—in his bearing puzzles Rung. If this is important to him somehow, it’s beyond Rung to understand why. Megatron has been on the ship for a fair while now, and they have encountered each other several times. It’s dawning on Rung that this is not the first time he’s felt strangely _present_ in a conversation with the co-captain. It’s as if Megatron is still looking at him even when he isn’t speaking, permanently tuned to Rung’s presence, keeping a tab on him.

“I should reread your—” Rung starts.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Megatron says, holding up his servo. “I’ve had enough autobots try to pick my brain over the years.”

The phrase _pick my brain_ in itself echoes with unfortunate implications, ringing like a dead bell in the silent air.

“I confess, you have me at something of a loss,” Rung says, brows furrowing. “You say you don’t want my analysis, but then you continue to offer me insights into your feelings.”

Megatron frowns. “Is that the only kind of explanation you can imagine for why I might share something with you?”

As Rung stands there, speechless in the corridor, Megatron offers out the rag to him again. It hangs from his servos, small and delicate.

“Whatever you may think of me,” he says, “I have never had anything but genuine respect for you, doctor.”

 

 

A few shift cycles after that encounter, by the light of a datapad, Rung pauses in the midst of responding to a memo from the medical staff.

The play was mentioned in a pamphlet. He remembers, although the memory is fuzzy—he remembers reading the pamphlet some millions of years ago, before the war broke out. The drive had been left on the sidewalk, cracked and anonymous, with the unrest that birthed it almost bleeding out of its casing. No one had wanted to be caught holding Decepticon pamphlets by that point, but Rung had never been one to worry unduly about such things, or turn down the offer of knowledge. He wanted to understand… everything, _anything_ , the first and most primal imperative: understand.

Although Rung has never agreed with the Decepticon methods, and certainly not their genocidal end goals, in those earlier days he followed their movement with genuine interest, and no little sympathy. Of anyone, Rung the Functionless knew well that there was something wrong with their shining republic. The unrest in the very airwaves was thick to choking in those days. He had taken the drive.

The phrase that bubbles to the top of his memory catches him like the half-remembered chorus of a song, naggingly familiar, unfinished.

He pulls open an annotated copy of _Toward Peace_ , not the first edition he once brought to Megatron’s session, but a later one. He looks over a brief section from the memoirs, appended with pamphlets from the early days of the movement. Of course he understands now what he didn’t understand then, and couldn’t have, before the time travel.

 

>>In the classic tragedy of  _Omega Prime_ , that amorphous political mirror, there is one minor character that never ceases to fascinate me. He speaks eight lines; in every known transcription, he is credited only as “Servant”.  On days like these, when the shell above the rust-infested core of this so-called republic shines with the spit polish of countless million mechs, I am reminded of the Servant. In my mind I have already cast him in the sun-bright colors of today’s unrest.

 _Omega Prime_ has survived the regimes of era after era by being coy and fanged in turns. The tragedy is of Cybertron’s someday-final Prime, twisted by his obsession with his own power—once the great hope of his people, at last reduced to a maddened shadow of himself. Around him, his generals and sycophants cannibalize each other, feeding from the tainted dregs of his authority. They think they know how the story will end. They are wrong, of course.

The play survives uneasily in these times by disguising itself as a stab against autocracy, but it is not about _autocracy_. It is about power, and it is about corrupt systems, and it is about systematized injustice. When Omega, with his secret police and his grandiose delusions, at last turns his knife on the one true friend left to him in his court, his generals indulge him. They crowd each other, delighted with the exercise of power, lost in their political machinations. They have their own long term plans.

The Servant has no such ambitions. He has no notion of how the play should end, or how the regime will fall. All he understands is the scene before him: an injustice that he cannot stand by and witness. He sees Brighteye in the grip of the guards, moments away from undergoing the fatal shadowplay. A functioning being is about to be taken and re-written like an unsatisfactory polemic before the board of censorship. The servant will not stand for it. His gun is at his master’s spark in a moment—then the sycophantic Breakwave stabs him through the back. That is the whole of his part in the play. Resistance; death.

In a play such a thing is nothing. But in reality, it is the only thing that matters. You must act, regardless of whether you believe you will make a difference. If each of us only held our ground at the sight of injustice, the senate itself would shake.

In a bar somewhere, a small frame, delicate even—a nothing and a no one—stands with his jaw set. Towering above him: self satisfied brutes, the hounds of the functionists. There is light, clear as triplegrade, pouring past him. He will not heel, no matter how they crack their servos and leer at him.

There is nothing that enrages the stupid and cruel quite like the audacity of the weak to maintain their pride. In that moment, he could kneel for them. Many would. Many break to the whip of their oppressors, because they know nothing else. Public humiliation is such a small thing in contrast to corporal punishment. My mistake was in assuming that I, too, knew how the scene would play. I barely listened, assured of my disgust and satisfied with my own plans, and that is why I did not hear the final _no._

He hits the wall in a splash of energon and a crash of glass. That is how the play has to end. Make no mistake, there will never be another outcome with the odds stacked as they are. And yet, if one unarmed no one could bear to stand his ground—if he who had nothing to fight with could set his jaw against the jeering of the world—how much more do we owe, who have everything to fight with?

Outnumbered and outclassed, he does the one thing that cannot be forgiven: he insists on his dignity. Since that day, I have thought often of his face, blank and splattered with spilled drink, his systems creaking and popping with the aftermath of violence.

That was the part best acted. <<

 

Rung barely moves for a long time, his vision swimming with the diamond brightness of his datapad in the darkness. He meant to be recharging by now. He has appointments tomorrow.

The door slides closed behind him with a whisper.

 

 

Megatron’s recharges have been fitful as of late. Ever since Shockwave and the trial, his defrag has developed a habit of spinning up visions which even he—witness to more gore-strewn battlefields than any mech in the universe save perhaps one—finds disorienting. Unsettling. As his RAM unloads and reorders itself, filing itself away into the correct memory pathways, his mind is full of scenes half fantasy, half reality.

It is a hall like the one in the Nemesis, but not. In the midst of the decay and disrepair, there are grand banners and ornate trappings. Below the dais of his throne, in the crowd, there is the blue-and-red flicker that he’s learned the hard way never to fully take his eye off.

“Observe,” he says, sweeping his servo over the glittering throng below him. “Am I not master of all creation? Do the galaxies not tremble at the sound of my footsteps?”

At his side, delicate and reserved, Rung pinches his expression into a small, tight frown.

“Speak, servant,” Megatron says. “Your lord commands it.”

Light glints from the round blue glass of Rung’s spectacles, sharp and deep as nebulae. In a room full of war builds, cold constructed and augmented alike, he is strikingly out of place. “Don’t you think it’s funny, in a way,” Rung says, “that after all your pretty words, here you are, another tyrant king, drunk on the gore of his own court?”

Megatron freezes, and then he throws out an arm, catching Rung by the throat with a servo that easily encloses his frame. “What did you say?” he demands.

Rung is unimpressed. In the collar and cage of Megatron’s fingers, he sets his jaw. “You haven’t undone the evils of our race,” Rung says. “You’ve only overturned them, so that you sit at the top. If this was anything but a mad quest to satisfy your pride, you would have made peace millennia ago. Your enemies are dead, your cities are burned. Why do you still bleed your subjects onto this death engine?”

His many delicate joints creak in Megatron’s tightening grip. Even like this, he is beautiful. Megatron is not surprised to find that Rung is beautiful—he has often found himself transfixed by the very things that seek to destroy him.

In this room, in this vision, in this nightmare with another self's fury charging through his puppet frame, Megatron already knows what he will see when Rung lifts his arm: the glowing ring of a charged gun, as bright and perfect as the blue circle of Rung’s own spark chamber. It’s such a little thing, that gun, barely enough to break the polish of Megatron’s outer plating. It is a suicide, bright and pointless and wonderful.

“My lord,” Rung says, with an expression so cool and cutting that it severs Megatron spark to servo.

The barrel sings with charge.

 

Megatron bursts into fitful consciousness at the sound of a firm knock on his door. He swings to his feet in a moment. Too many years of living on the knife edge of war have left him without the luxury of slow wakefulness. He crosses the habsuite in a moment. Even if it’s only Rodimus come by to complain yet _again_ about the lack of shore leave opportunities lately, Megatron is still grateful to be anywhere but under the glare of that thrumming blaster.

But the door, deaf to his hopes, slides back to reveal probably the only thing that could chill his fuel lines any further.

Rung pauses, his clever gaze cataloguing every inch of the mech in front of him, optics bare and brows furrowing. “Were you recharging?”

Megatron digs a servo into the seam of his faceplate, trying to relieve a pressure that he half doubts really exists. “It’s fine,” he says. “I had an early shift, I’m just trying to catch up. Can I help you with something?”

Still frowning, Rung says, “If you don’t mind the timing, I’d like to talk to you about _Omega Prime._ ”

For a moment Megatron has the wild and nonsensical urge to slam the door shut. But that’s not behavior befitting a captain, even a captive one, and besides, it’s not the sort of behavior Rung deserves. Truth be told, at almost any other point in Megatron’s functioning, he would have relished the suggestion that Rung wanted to speak with him about literature.

Not tonight.

“You reread the _servant_ pamphlet, didn’t you?” he says, even as he takes a step back into the darkness. He gestures with one wide arm, allowing Rung into the room.

“I did,” Rung says. He steps into the room without hesitation, servos folded respectfully behind his back as he observes what he can through the darkness. There isn’t much to observe. It’s a bare room, hardly more than a cell.

“If you’d like to sit down,” Megatron says, casting a meaningful glance at the berth, “you’re welcome to.”

Rung hardly seems fazed. “Very well,” he says, and levers himself up the side to the slab where he sits, legs crossed, servos folded in his lap. It honestly takes Megatron aback, not just the quickness of the motion but the ease of it, as if there was nothing particularly strange about his current position, his current whereabouts.

Unfortunately, even without a charged gun in his servo, Rung is still beautiful. Everything about him is curved and pointed, lean, half soft and half cutting. Without his round, friendly glasses he has the keenest eyes Megatron has ever seen.

“So when you said I influenced you,” Rung starts, “you meant that _seriously?”_

Megatron turns to the window. The starfield beyond is unfamiliar to him.

“Did you know, I wonder, that I used to make a point of learning the recruits’ names?” he asks. “I took pride in it, knowing every last drill and cassette in my army. Acknowledging their choice. Even when I was throwing them into the jaws of a slaughter, I thought it made a difference. And then somewhere along the way, I stopped checking.”

“Are you telling me this in an official capacity?” Rung says, in a neutral tone.

Megatron sighs. “Did you _come_ here in an official capacity?”

There’s a moment of pause, and then- “No. I did not.”

Megatron is surprised at the relief he feels. “Good,” he says. “I’m afraid I have little interest in your professional abilities, but I admit, I feel as if we’re overdue for a real conversation. Spark to spark.”

“Judging by the date of this pamphlet,” Rung says, lifting a brow, “maybe we are.”

How many times he imagined this conversation—sometimes welcoming, sometimes bitter, but never like this. Never with himself so reduced, and never in such a humble setting. He has little to offer but his berth and his own dusty words. It truly is over now, isn’t it? All their soaring ambitions, all their bright and burning dreams - smoldered down to exile and shackles.

“For a long time,” he says, “when I would scan those names, I always hoped I would see yours.”

“ _Mine?”_ Rung says, an edge of surprise in his voice.

Megatron nods.

“But I’m,” Rung says, and then catches himself, vocals offlining. Megatron turns his head just in time to see the cascade of mixed emotions on Rung’s face, all of them turned inward, all of them struggling for space. Megatron would give anything to hear the thoughts behind that surge.

“I’m not your usual recruit,” Rung says, at last, with a voice that betrays none of his uncertainty. “My frame is—”

“Weak? Come now,” Megatron cuts in. “Modesty like that is misleading at best, dishonest at worst.”

Rung resets his vocals, with a faint crackle.

“You must know I had more than jets and drills pledged to me,” Megatron says. “The revolution was intended to be for all of us—all the cassettes and the laser pointers and the miners too, everyone at the dregs of society. No matter how we… may have failed, in that respect.”

Rung is quiet for a moment. “I had thought,” he says, carefully, “that my influence was more… incidental than this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Frankly, I thought you blamed me for the arrest that day at Maccadam’s.”

“Blamed you?” Megatron frowns. “You were no more responsible for what happened than those two lugheads at the bar, or the officers at the scene, or the senate itself. I admired you, in fact, for a long time.”

“And when did you stop?” Rung says, hearing the unspoken afterword that Megatron didn’t even mean to append. Of course. Rung is too sharp to miss something like that.

Megatron has never been one to break a stare first. The hot edge of Rung’s scrutiny, prying at his plates, however—it makes him wish he could.

“Ours was a long war,” he says. “It was probably about the same time I stopped learning names.”

In four million years, his priority tree has been reorganized so many times that in retrospect he now wonders how much he even has in common with the firebrand idealistic revolutionary, let alone with the miner from Tarn. How many of his new skills overwrote his old truths?

Or is it worse to think that he has always been the same person, even at his ugliest, even at his most base?

He shakes his head. “In the early days I used to think about how I’d receive you, when you came to me,” he says. “And I was so certain you would. I had hopes to impress you. Lights, grand bustle, a personalized tour, an offer…”

He had imagined wide-optics and a grateful tremor in the servo, overwhelmed and honored—how sweet he had imagined that moment would be. Prime was always one to use forgiveness as a weapon, whereas Megatron had always been one for the double-edged blade of responsibility. Honor and service, accolade and duty; the reward for good work was more work, each accomplishment bringing them deeper into his operation.

Then of course, later he learned that Rung had taken Prime’s brand instead. The fantasies at that point had taken on a crueler edge, a bitterer hope, and gradually been buried under the endless cavalcade of new hopes as the war spun on.

“That is—” Rung says. “That is an awful lot more attention than I’m used to receiving from… from _anyone_ , really.”

The set of his chin is proud but somehow… delicate, as if it is costing him to admit this. Megatron wants to cup it in his servos, to feel the fragile but sharp thing, like a fine scalpel, in his grip. How did he ever forget what it was like to want this? How had he forgotten the specific flavor of this longing, the dream of a thing as sublime and uncertain as the bannered turrets of a mythic history?

The edge of his mouth twitches. Primus, that was _romantic_. How long has it been since he allowed himself to entertain romance? Every enemy and ally, every temporary lover and strange bedfellow of the war—somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten how to take pleasure in a small moment.

When he shakes himself out of it, he finds Rung watching him with… with a kind of intent that Megatron has never seen in him before, something hard to identify on his simultaneously open and inscrutable face. The blue of his optics glows like his spark, like the light of a chemical reaction pure and devastating.

“Would you really have met me yourself?” Rung asks. “Even in the early days, you must have had more work than cycles to accomplish it in.”

“Of course,” Megatron says. Almost too small to notice, Rung leans a fraction closer. Megatron’s spark gives a hard, unexpected pulse. A thousand impulses surge through him; fascination lights up the sensors all up and down his spinal strut.

“I would never have gone to you,” Rung says, even as his whole frame seems to be magnetically drawn up towards Megatron. His folded legs give a soft creak. “I was against your methods from the start.”

“I gathered as much,” Megatron says, wryly.

Rung doesn’t subside. “You mentioned an offer…?”

For a moment, all Megatron can think of is that ancient fantasy, soft-edged with age: the grand and towering throne, the sweet hot sunlight, and Rung perched in his lap, regal and easy, lifted once and for all from the ignominy of his once-life. As much as he knows that isn’t a gift Rung would ever have accepted from him, part of him still longs to offer it.

After all this time, it’s insane that the two of them would at last come to rest on the same ship like _this._ Every time he talks to Rung—every time he occupies the same _room_ —he’s reminded so wrenchingly of the kinds of hopes he used to have, when the war was new, and the cause was fresh, and he still believed in romance. Not just regarding Rung—even at his most besotted, he had many _many_ other things on his mind—but still, it’s Rung who brings it all back most clearly, perhaps because even now he feels that same thrumming desire. The purity of it. The gravity of it. The titanic pull.

“I would have made you an officer,” Megatron says. “CMO, full command of staff.”

He can taste the weight of it, of this admission, and he wonders if Rung can too.

“On the flagship,” he adds. “With me.”

Rung cocks his head. “You would have trusted me with that? You hardly knew me.”

Megatron half-smirks. “I trusted lesser mechs with more.”

Rung’s servo slides across the berth as his weight shifts still forward, leaning onto it, and he says, “Why?”

“Why?” Megatron echoes, incredulous. He _knows_ Rung read the pamphlet. How could he say it more plainly than that?

The intensity in Rung’s gaze—the way he pushes himself forward, draws himself up—he’s not just urgent. He’s _thin_ , stretched tight, and Megatron could shatter him with the flick of a servo.

Dawning understanding makes his spark gutter. “Do you think so little of yourself?”

“There’s a difference,” Rung says, softly, “between knowing one’s worth and knowing one’s _valuation_.”

“Your _valuation_ ,” Megatron snarls, “should come from your strength of character! It should come from your mind, from your spark, from any of the thousands of assets you have other than dumb _power!_ ”

In the back of his mind he thinks this may be hypocritical of him—he, who spent the last millennia of his endless war running the numbers, sharpening his blades until they sung, building every MTO bigger and stronger and badder than the last. And yet somehow he _means_ it, and he’s angry that he seems to be the first to ever say this to Rung. Did Prime never stop to assure Rung of his value? Did Prime even know his designation? Was there even anyone _there_ to welcome him to the red-brand side, to properly appreciate the finely tuned instrument who pledged himself so willingly to their cause?

He’s not only offended on Rung’s behalf, but more than that, he’s bitterly jealous of the squandered opportunity.

“You ask so little of others,” he says. “Having known you like this, under these circumstances, for a while now, it astounds me how little you ask of others, and how much you demand of yourself.”

This, of everything, is what causes Rung to draw back. His servos touch vaguely at his faceplate, as if reaching to adjust his missing glasses. “If this is an offer after all,” Rung says, “if this is how you plan to gather allies for your next move, whatever it is—” He resets his vocoder, and sounding as if it pains him deeply to do so, he says, “I decline. And when the call to arms comes, I will fight, just like I always have.”

“The war is over,” Megatron says. “I’m gracious enough to know when the play has ended. This isn’t about that.”

“Good,” Rung says, with the faintest tremble in his voice. “Because no amount of lovely sentiment will protect your spark from my knife, if it comes to that.”

A strange thrill races through Megatron, a charge crackling beneath his plates. “I can count on one servo the number of bots I’d ever allow to finally terminate me,” he says. He does not elaborate. From the way Rung stiffens, he doesn’t think he needs to.

It’s not something he thinks through beforehand. It’s not a measured reaction; it’s desire and driving instinct that brings him across the floor, to the edge of the berth. He settles onto his knees there, lifting his servos, open palmed. They are nearly on eye level, this way.

“May I?” he says.

“What are you going to do?” Rung asks. He regards Megatron’s servos with hesitation and interest.

“Touch you,” Megatron answers, “the way I’ve been wanting to nearly since I boarded this ship.”

Rung shudders. His optics blink off and then relight.

“You may,” he says.

Gently, almost reverently, Megatron slides his servos between Rung’s thighs and parts them. He hooks a thumb under each knee and takes in the sight, the warm metal this close, the protoform visible between the plates, vulnerable cables and cords. The pristine surface of the modesty plate.

Rung’s vents kick on.

Megatron runs his servos up Rung’s thighs and over his hips. Rung all but bares himself to the exploration, settling back, weight on the palms of his servos. The inward curve of his waist is gentle and graceful, pleasing to the touch. Rung’s frame has such a lovely ease of design, unencumbered by the rough modifications of a generation.

Well. Megatron frowns slightly at the presence of the dorsal wheel; up close the backpack is clearly a later addition, in a cruder and less unified style.

“Why do you wear this?” he says, flicking the small wheel. The neural link between it and Rung’s native anatomy must be several magnitudes reduced, if it exists at all; Megatron has never known a bot who didn’t sigh or squirm with pleasure when their wheels were given a spin.

Rung’s mouth pulls. He clears his cloudy stare and turns his optics on Megatron—at this angle, it’s a downward glance, and it suits him somehow, it makes him shine. He makes charge run up Megatron’s spinal strut.

“A long time ago I was told to wear it to reassure people,” Rung replies. “I suppose _I_ find it reassuring, now.”

Megatron doesn't really like the sound of that, but then, he _is_ the one still reacting to threats as if he still has a canon in his arm. Force of habit he understands. He runs a digit up the joint where it meets Rung’s back and is at last gratified with a sigh. “Do you take it off to recharge?” Megatron asks.

“Yes,” Rung says. He cocks an eyebrow and adds, “And for other things, as well.”

Electricity zips through Megatron; his spark sings. “Well,” he says. “You certainly have no obligation to reassure _me.”_

“Mm,” Rung says, a smile twitching on his lips. “I don’t, do I?”

“Would you take it off for me?”

Rung considers him, for long moment.

It’s been a long time since the former-general, war machine, master of militia, put himself so much at the mercy of another’s whim. A long time since he kneeled willingly for anyone. And he _is_ at Rung’s mercy, as much as if he was in the grip of that slim servo.

After a moment, Rung twists and curves an arm behind himself, disengaging the pack. He swings it down and sets it on the floor, easily.

“There we are,” he says, as he draws back up. There’s a wry edge to his voice as he asks, “Does it meet with your expectations?”

"You do."

Megatron closes his servos around Rung’s back, thumbs under the curve of his chestplate, holding him like a strange and priceless artifact. He lifts Rung slightly, just enough to drag him forward onto the edge of the berth. Rung startles, reaches out and grips the side of Megatron’s helm to steady himself.

“I’ve thought of you like this many times before,” Megatron answers, honestly, “but the imprecision of a dream pales in comparison to the weight of your real frame.”

There’s a soft _tock_ as Rung’s servo meets his mouth, the joints of his digits half-hiding his expression. “That’s,” he says. “That’s very—kind of you.”

Megatron runs a thumb up the seam of a thigh plate, charge crackling under the digit. “Don’t misunderstand,” he says. “I’ve never been accused of kindness. I simply know merit when I see it—” Rung jolts as his touch reaches the edge of something more intimate still, “—and I know beauty when I see it, too, although I’ve seen precious little of it in recent times.”

He presses a kiss to the inside of Rung’s thigh, as heat begins to bleed off the delicate metal under his fingers.

“May I?”

Fans straining, crackling and venting hard, Rung looks down at him. There’s a kind of pride in the way he holds himself, even now, even like this. It’s mesmerizing. “You may,” he says.

The modesty cover slides back, and without asking, Rung hooks his knees over the broad shoulders below him. His valve is already engaged, slick lubricant peeking from between the mesh, and against the prick of cool air he twitches involuntarily. Or maybe it’s the attention he twitches under—the hunger that Megatron can feel swelling in him like a combustion reaction, ready to consume him in white fire.

Megatron dips forward. He presses his lips to the flickering anterior node, which flares to life under his gentle attention. A full body shudder takes hold of the bot above him.

He licks into the warm crush of the valve, glossa parting mesh. The knees on his shoulders whisper with the strain of trying to pull him closer, joints creaking, and Rung’s digits scrape against the berth. His frame tastes of warmth, the tang of arousal, and Megatron hums low in his throat as Rung pushes up into him, urging him deeper.

He suddenly regrets not simply pulling Rung down onto his face and letting the bot ride him into delirium. His own panel is thrumming with heat between his legs; his system keeps pinging him with requests to disengage the cover. _Primus_ , it’s all he can do to stay focused. If Rung would simply use him—mount him and have him—he wouldn’t have to fight himself so hard not to get lost in the ozone scent of interfacing, the taste of lubricant.

 _Next time_ , he thinks. There _will_ be a next time. He’ll make sure of it—he’s never known his ambitions to let him down before.

He licks a path up to the glowing anterior node, the same crystal blue as Rung’s spark, and closes his lips around it. It sparks under his glossa. It burns him in the smallest and most devastating way.

“That’s wonderful,” Rung says, in a faint voice, as if he’s diverting power from his vocalizer to somewhere else. Megatron only has to sink a digit into the hot press of Rung’s valve to know where the power is going.

“Oh!” Rung startles, static swallowing his voice, and he curls forward over Megatron’s helm. His servos clamp down on either side, firm sweet pressure. “You must—” He resets his vocalize and tries again. “You must let me do something for—”

Megatron curls his digit and presses an interior sensor hard enough that Rung’s voice glitches into complete nonsense.

“Unnecessary,” Megatron says, roughly. His lips brush the buzzing heat of Rung’s node.

“But—” Rung manages.

Megatron pulls back just enough to look up, absently wiping lubricant from his mouth with the back of his servo. Rung’s optics follow the path of his servo with predatory focus.

“For tonight,” Megatron says, “for as long as you want—I should like you to think of me as your servant.”

 


End file.
